Is Phoenix finally embracing pension sanity?

This just in: the city of Phoenix may actually move toward a plan where its employees contribute as much to their own pensions as taxpayers do.

Instead of next year's 4-for-1 match -- I think you can guess who's ponying up the 4 -- the proposal calls for employees and citizens to eventually go halfsies. That's assuming voters approve of the idea.

Which is, I think, a lock.

If only voters could require the same of Congress, those so-called public servants who get an astounding $18 from us for every $1 they put into their pensions.

Or of elected officials in Phoenix and 19 other cities, who enjoy a more than a 3-to-1 match. (Council members in smaller cities and towns, such as Buckeye and Casa Grande, tell me they aren't part of Arizona's Elected Officials Retirement Plan and thus don't get squat.)

State workers, meanwhile, long had a 50-50 split until this year, when the Legislature forced them to pay for 53 percent of their pensions. They are, of course, suing over this outrage.

Now comes the proposal to inject a little fairness into Phoenix. I say a little, because the proposal would allow existing employees to continue spiking their pensions with unused leave and various other allowances.

That ought to be interesting, given that Phoenix's next mayor, Greg Stanton, pledged during the campaign to end all pension spiking. (He also pledged to lobby the Legislature about the pensions that mayors get. I suggest he start with that hideous 3-to-1 match.)

Phoenix has been under pressure to reform its pension plan since word slipped out last year that former City Manager Frank Fairbanks retired with a six-figure parting gift, one that that is $47,000 more than the pensions earned by presidents.

Of the United States, that is.

Turns out the cost of the city system has risen 377 percent in just 11 years. Although employees continue to contribute 5 percent of their pay toward their pension -- as they have since Richard Nixon was president -- the public's share now is 18 percent. It'll jump to just over 20 percent next year.

Now the Phoenix Pension Reform Task Force, after a year of work, has put together a sensible plan that calls for a 50-50 split in four years. New employees would immediately pay half while existing employees would see their contribution rise by 2 percent a year until it reaches 50-50 in 2016.

The new plan would save the city $50 million a year.

But there's a catch. The task force also is recommending to the City Council that current employees be allowed to continue adding the value of their unused leave to their final salary, which is used to calculate their pensions. City employees boost their pay by an average of $6,000 with unused sick leave and vacation, resulting in a 10 percent pension boost.

Rick DeGraw, chairman of the task force, told me that there are legal questions about whether the city can change the rules for existing employees.

"There was strong resistance from a number of groups about making changes to current contracts with the employees," DeGraw told me.

I would bet that the strongest resistance of all is coming from upper management, people who use spiking to bring home a substantial slab of bacon for the rest of their lives.

They're the ones most likely to be able to save up a sizable amount of vacation and sick leave, not to mention their travel, communication and technical allowances, all of which are used to boost their pensions.

Fairbanks, Phoenix's resident poster child for pension reform, cashed in nearly $238,000 of unused sick leave and more than $87,000 in unused vacation to boost his final salary and thus his pension -- to about 137 percent of his annual base pay. In all, he managed to pull down $1.3 million during his final three years, resulting in a $246,813 pension and the distinction of being Arizona's biggest pork belly.

Now Stanton and the City Council have a chance to stop such nonsense, something that will likely not happen for years, if ever, with our leaders in Washington, D.C.

The difference, of course, is that taxpayers ultimately will make the decision about whether to rein in city pensions.